Adviser to Punjab Chief Minister on Economic Affairs and Planning Dr Salman Shah on Friday said that Pakistan has all resources to become mini factory and a hub of economic activities of the world and the role of Punjab province is crucial in this regard.
He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Punjab has enormous resources like its people, youth and ecosystem of rivers. This is the phenomenon of urbanization and a good number of young people are migrating from the rural economy to the urban economy. Utilization, productivity, and competitiveness of these entire can make a breakthrough. And the focus for Punjab government is to improve institutions, and bring in governance and technology to leverage these resources, he added. He said to become an economic power, we must not restrict ourselves to just one or two products but can have the whole range of global markets manufacturing products by developing and leveraging the existing manufacturing clusters all over Punjab.
"To harness the resources in Punjab, reforms are very critical," Dr Salman Shah said, adding that our approach has been to bring down the cost through deregulation, reducing the regulatory burden and eliminating hurdles in investments. By improving efficiency and productivity, there is great scope of value addition in agriculture sector.
What this requires is streamlining and reforming the markets, reducing the transaction cost in the market that includes simplifying the procedures and the regulatory systems. Essentially, bringing regulatory and institutional reforms in the different markets include the commodity markets, wholesale, retail, housing, labour, as many of these are regulated through archaic regulations. "We at least need a coordinated action for agriculture and rural economy, services economy, manufacturing and the mining sector, urbanization and human resource development," he added. On the occasion, he also gave a presentation on the Business Plan of Punjab.
LCCI President Irfan Iqbal Sheikh said that re-zoning of Lahore Division is the urgent requirement of the industry in order to accommodate the needs of future expansion and encourage local entrepreneurs to invest in green field and other projects. All existing industrial units should be regularized without penalty. Furthermore, the government should demarcate industrial and economic zones and set up Special Economic Zones (SEZs) urgently on different suitable sites, he said.
He said that Punjab government has allocated development budget amounting to Rs 350 billion for the current fiscal year which is not sufficient keeping in view the infrastructure requirement of the province that contributes almost 55 percent in the total GDP. The government must substantially increase the development budget. Please also share with us the future plans of infrastructural development in the province, he ascertained.
He also stressed the need for setting up of Cottage Business Residential Parks on the model of Vietnam, Korea, China and Taiwan. This model that comprises double story buildings with first floor as residence and ground floor as business would reduce business investment requirements for cottage entrepreneurs and also allow women workforce to contribute to Industrial growth, he said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019